Yvonne is an Irish lawyer who has worked for over 5 years in one of Ireland’s leading law firms. Yvonne grew up in a rural village in West Cork, where her father was a voluntary director of a local Credit Union. Inspired by a summer spent volunteering with refugees, Yvonne delayed her professional legal studies, upon graduation from university, to gain an LLM in human rights law. She saw the limitations to the ‘top-down’ approach to human rights (where states routinely enter into conventions without follow-through) and decided, as Eleanor Roosevelt once said, that human rights begin ‘in small places, close to home’. Yvonne’s training was profoundly shaped by the global banking crisis. As a legal advisor to investment funds and regulated financial service providers, Yvonne has advised on the national, European and international legislation emerging from the fallout of the crisis. Yvonne hopes to use her sense of good banking practices to inform her work as a Kiva Fellow. Yvonne is thrilled to have the opportunity to assist the operations of BRAC Sierra Leone during her Fellowship, and to learn about West African culture. She is really looking forward to seeing how the loans improve the lives of local borrowers.